Mobile Product Photography for a Higher Revenue: A Guide for Creative Entrepreneurs

1. Introduction: hello and welcome to mobile product photography for a higher revenue. Throughout this class, I will teach you how to take gorgeous product photos on your phone and how to add them right there on your mobile device with help off the free light remap. My name is Mary Ann, and I'm a visual merchandiser by profession. I'm an expert at products styling and presentation. Through my 10 years off working for Switzerland's largest department store chain. Photography has been my passion since childhood. On building my own business, I have spent countless hours building my experience as a product photographer. This class does not require any previous knowledge. It is in a creative entrepreneurs who are either beginners, a product photography or who want to refresh their knowledge and to take it to the next level. Another way off. Utilizing the skills I'm going to teach you in this class is by taking gorgeous photos for your social media profiles, your block or your website. Great photos are key to succeeding online as a creative entrepreneur because they are a key factor in your potential customers buying decision. By the end of this class, you will know all the essential components off mobile product photography, and you will be able to easily apply them with things that you already have a home or did. You can buy for little money before we dive in. Let's talk about our class project. Instead of confronting you with a member of Project, I decided to divide it up into small assignments that I will give you after each lesson. This will make it super easy for you to follow along and to apply what I have taught you right away. The assignments cover everything from sketching your shots and selecting your props or finding the best place to shoot and building your own mobile photo studio to composing and shooting your images and finally editing them. As you can see, we have a lot to do, so let's get started. 2. Product Photography & Revenue: Let's start by talking about how exactly great photography can help you earn more money. If you are selling in a physical location, you can appeal to all the human senses to hearing sight, touch, taste, smell. But if you're selling on line, you're pretty much limited to site now. This is no reason to despair. Give up to 80% off. The human perception is determined by sight, and we can compensate artist senses via site. How does this candle smell? There's no way for you to know because you can't see smell. But what about now? What if you look at this photo to yes, this countless meself limes and has a little hint off mint in it? Off course he only assumed this, and I could be misleading you. But this is beside the point, because this example clearly shows you the incredible power of site and how it can compensate other senses. Such a smell selling your products online means that you are transferring your main saves arguments via site. Buy your product photography, and if you don't manage to capture your potential customer within seconds. If you don't manage to leave a loss impression within this very short time span, your chance is over. But how do you capture them? How do you create product photos that convert for you? First, they have to be a statically pleasing. Second, they have to be informative. On third, they have to devote desire. Now. Aesthetics and beauty are highly individual concepts, but there are certain elements and concepts that are universally pleasing to the human eye . Let's look at thes two photos, for example. I'm sure that we agreed at the 2nd 1 The one on the right is more attractive, more beautiful. But why? Let's compare the filters. The 2nd 1 is very bright and sharp, while the 1st 1 is starker and slightly blurry. The one on the right has perfectly straight lines, while one on the left seems to be a little bit distorted than the clean and clear background off the second image. Let's you focus on the product by the texture. Background in the first image is distracting, and last but not least, the second image is perfectly framed and composed in a pleasing way. The text is perfectly in the middle. In the 1st 1 however, everything is just a little bit off. All these components also support the second goal off your product photography, providing information your potential customer wants and needs to know. At first glance what your product is all about. The bright image on the right clearly shows the color and the tax sheriff the product. The sharpness is necessary to see every little detail it clean. White background makes it easy to focus solely under product. The straight lines guide the I instead of slightly annoying viewer, and the perfect centering off the text serves the same purpose. You could argue that in some aspects, the difference between the truth photos is only very minimal, and still they look and feel very differently. Not every single one of your product voters will take the third box. The evoking off desire this force to a certain category of product photos. The lifestyle photos. These photos tell a story. They show your product in use and help your potential customer imagine it as part off their lives. But I will tell you more about them later on. Now that we have established why great product photography is crucial to your commercial success, let me teach you how to take all the boxes often est ethical, pleasing, informative and seductive image 3. Materials: Let's talk about the materials that we're going to need in this class as I've promised you into introduction. It's all materials that you either already half a home or that you can acquire for very little money. The first. The most important thing is off course. Our phone. This is what we're going to take the pictures with. Secondly, you will need a large sheet of white paper so large, then I won't even show it to you. Hear. Mine is around 30 inches 2 40 inches. I suggest that you just grab the biggest one that you can get. If you want to take more precise measurements, try to following lay your product down on a flat surface and pretend that you want to take a photo. Now all the empty space around your product has to be covered by the paper. Once you have determined that size, double it. This will give you a very nice seamless background. You also need a second smaller of sheet of white paper, about half the size off the 1st 1 which will act as a reflector when you're shooting and add more light to our scenery. Another thing you will need is some tape to hold our paper in place and last but not least , the free light room mobile app, which you can download either from the Apple Store or from the Google Play Store. And this is your assignment for this class had to your local station area craft store and buy the two sheets of paper in the size. You need them. Make sure that the paper is not glossy and that it's as white as possible. This is going to be important during our editing process later on, and I also want you to go to the APP store or to do who play store if your android and search for and download the app Adobe Photoshopped Light Dream CC. Open it and create an account. You need to do this to be able to use it later on. But don't worry, it's completely free. 4. Preparing to Shoot: As you can see, I sketch out both my simple product shots as well as the lifestyle shots. This also helps me to make sure that I have thought off all the props that I will need to make my lifestyle photos work if you need help with your props. Election With telling a story that evokes desire, check out my class products, stalling for a higher revenue or download my free products Selling guy, which are both linked in description. Bilow. Let's wrap this lesson up with your assignment. It is finally time for you to create your own project in the project section off this class , then make sketches or take notes off each off the shots that you want to take and share them with me and your fellow students in your class project. And last but not least, get the props that you want to use for your lifestyle shots 5. Light: as you can see off switch locations. And yes, this means that we're getting closer to actually taking our voters. But first I want to talk to you about light. Because life is the key component in photography on Goodlatte situation on great product photography's than in direct correlation. It's literally about percent in your product in the best life possible. Now. What is a good life situation when we're talking about shooting in natural light? It is what I have here, right but soft light. Ideally, your shooting on a day where it's cloudy and over cost but bright like it is here in ST Gallen today. If you are shooting on a sunny day, just make sure that you shoot in a shaded area. This will also give you the desired soft look. Just avoid direct sunlight at all costs because it creates dark and harsh shadows, which will obscure your product on which will distract from it. How do you find your ideal spot and like to shoot at your place? What you want is something like I have here shoot close to a window that has a lot of flight and, ideally, indirect sunlight. If you have a window that has a lot off brake light, but it's mainly direct sunlight. You can trick a little bit and filter delight with a blind something like the like. Er shot is blind in white. It was perfectly, and they use it every time that I have direct sunlight in this room. But I called Postpone my shooting before we wrap up this lesson. A little word of caution. Do not mix different light sources. It might be tempting to switch on one off the lamps in the room if it's a dreary day outside, but I don't recommend it. Doing it can cause a strange mix off. You said. You can't really correct during editing. The reason is that natural daylight has a bluish you, while artificial light sources are usually more on the warmer. For example, yellow site off the light spectrum. Time for you to find your hot spot as D assignment for this class. I want you to find the best room and spot at your place. Then you have a picture off it and upload it to your project. Maybe you will find another student with similar like conditions, and the two of you can exchange tips on how to get the most out off it 6. Your Mobile Photo Studio: now that we have to determine the ideal place to shoot, it's time to set up our mobile photo studio, respectively. Our sheets of paper having a mobile photo studio is very practical because shooting in natural light means that we follow the light, not to mention the little space that it takes up when storing it. When I started my product styling and photography business, this is how my set up look. I was soon tired off lying and crouching on the floor. And so I built myself this little set up out off camping table, some mounting brackets and some white boards. This is something that I leave completely up to you, your unique situation and your products. The most important thing for you to know is that the quality off my photos was not influenced by changing the set up. This one is just much more practical for me. And this is how I shoot and facing my set up. And I have my light source here to my left. As you can see, there is an under light in front of me. But this one is not relevant If you don't have one, don't worry if you have one. However, make sure that you face it like I do, because if you have your back to it, you will cost shadows onto your product. And this is not what we want. Now let me take you through setting up your own mobile photo studio. Let's assume your light source is on this side. Could also be on the other side. That doesn't really matter. You can adjust accordingly. Now what I want you to do is take the first sheet of paper to big One and set it up in a way that the light hits it from the side and that it forms an open Varel. This open barrel is was what will create a perfect, seamless background for you. Now you might need a chair where something similar epic here to help you hold your piece of paper up of some tape. Also some tape here on the floor, like I did when I first started. And then the only thing left to do to complete the set up is take the second sheet of paper a smaller one and place it here and with here, I mean, on the opposite side off your light source. I'll tell you in a moment why you should do that. Maybe you need another smaller chair or something to hold this piece of paper up A swell. Now, when you place your product here, let's say it's a little laws what this second sheet of paper does, it takes the light that comes from here and that misses the product and reflects it back on this side of the product that is starker. And this way it makes the lighting more even and also softens the shadows. I'm going to show you an example just how incredible the difference can be when shooting with or without this second sheet of paper. This so called reflector as your assignment for this lesson. I want you to build your own little studio. Odd use friend of furniture like I did in the beginning, Or look for a more permanent solution. Whatever you decide on, don't forget to share it with us in your class project. 7. Simple Product Photos: it's finally time to grab your product and your phone and to start shooting. We're starting with the simple product shots, and my product is going to be this pencil case that you have already seen in some off my example shots through our set up. We have taken every possible measure to make sure that the so called exposure that means the brightness off our photo is going to be ideal. We can brighten up our photo a little bit in post processing. That means when we're editing it. But it's much better to get as much as possible right from the start, because it will take you less time in editing. And it will in the end, provide for a much higher quality in your photo. And that's what we want, then something that you can not at it is a blurry photo. You cannot fix a blurry photo, and as we have determined, our photos have to be informative because our potential customers want to see every tiny detail of our product. Now your phone camera will choose to focus itself and usually does a pretty good job, but I want you to make sure that it focuses exactly where you want by tapping this exact point on your scream and off you've taken a photo. Always assume in and check that it's not blurry and that everything that you want to be in focus is actually in focus. Do you have thes lines across your screen when shooting? If not, grab the user manual to your phone and find out how to enable them. It help you to hold your camera straight and let the right angle so that your product does not look distorted. It is possible to make adjustments during the editing process, but it's a lot better to get it correct from the start instead of artificially distorting the image afterwards. Furthermore, this particular editing tool is not available in the free light to mobile version that we're going toe work with before I give you the assignment for this lesson, I have a little pro tip. Always make sure that you have a kitchen roll, some window cleaner and Alan trolling nearby and use these free things to get rid off all the little smudges and fingerprints. If you have a problem with a glossy surface or off all the little specks off dust entered on tax style products. Again, this is something that could be edited. But with the free light through mobile version that we're going to use, it's not possible. And it's something that you don't want to do in editing any way you want to get it right right there from the start as your assignment for this class, you finally get to take some photos. It's time that you take your classic product photos, but only the simple shots. I still have to teach you a thing or two about your lifestyle photos. Shoot according to your sketches or your notes, and then share a least two off your images in your class project. 8. Styled Product Photos: after completing the simple product chance. It's now time to move on to the lifestyle shots to those shots that evoke desire, because in them we can show our potential customers how our products can be used and how they fit into their lives. Let's start by talking about props election, because props are essential to making such lifestyle shots come to life. However, in this class, I'm only going to teach you the most basic aspect off props, election and off products styling and photo composing because in this class and focusing on product photography, if you need help with your props, election or your product styling in general, you can find this help in my 1st 2 classes. Product styling for a high revenue and the Deuce and Don's off products styling. But back to the props. Make sure that you don't select too many less is truly more here. I recommend that you use 2 to 4 props, not more on. You have to make sure that your props always compliment your product. They can never overwhelm it or distract from it. You want to select props that lets you create a scene that let your potential customers see and imagine how your product can be used in his or her life. Because remember, this is about evoking desire and consequently increasing your revenue. Let me explain why I have chosen my props and how I have arranged them. My product is a pencil case on my fictional target audience are artists. This is why I've created a scene from an artist's life, penciled shavings to sketched a pencil sharpener and the pencil case. Everything is lying there, just waiting to be picked up by the artist again who, as we can easily imagine, has just gotten up to grab and not a cup of coffee. When it comes to arrange a truce props, I want you to especially pay attention to two things. Uneven numbers and groupings because they both contribute to assist ethically pleasing stylings. We humans always look for patterns like pears, using uneven numbers, ATS dynamic because it keeps the viewers I engaged and wondering around your styling. This is why the right photo with five objects is a statically more pleasing than the one on the left, which has only four objects in it. Groupings help us navigate an image and understand it. Having everything in one big heap or spread out very evenly takes a lot of work to process and tires on. Consequently, and Noise D viewer divide your products and props into smaller groups like in the example on the right. They got the human eye and at interest and are therefore aesthetically more pleasing than the one big group on the left. There is no assignment for this class because I want you to watch the next lesson about composing before taking any photos off your lovely and the staff thickly pleasing stylings . 9. Composing: you're styling looks perfect, and now it's time to move on and put the little cherry on top by composing it beautifully. Here is where you should use the so called rule or thirds on. I'm not going to explain to you why you're just going to have to trust me when I tell you that it is aesthetically pleasing to the human eye. But how do you use this rule off thirds simple. Remember the lines on your screen. They divide the image into its thirds. Experiment with placing your product, either on the cross section off these lines or in the middle off the fields. If you're ever in doubt, put your product exactly in the center. It is, after all, the central aspect off your image as your assignment. I want you to experiment with your style. Charts. Have fun on. Don't forget to share some off them with us in your class project. 10. Editing & Exporting: and now it's time for the last step. The editing. In the first lesson, we have determined that in order to create product photos that convert for you, they have to be first as silently pleasing. Second, informative and third, they have to evoke desire. Editing enhances everything that we have done before is specialty aesthetics. Open delight you mobile app on your phone. If you haven't downloaded yet and need help, check the product photography guideline in the class. Resource is first. We want to import are images into light room. Create a new elbow. I'm going to call mine product photography. Select the album and then click this blue sign at the bottom of your screen and then camera roll. You can either select and by clicking on them individually or by just swiping across the screen. Confirm with add photos. Now select the first image. You want to add it at the bottom of your screen. You will find the editing tools. The ones with the Blue Star are not available in the free version that we're working with. We start the editing process by going into optics on. By activating the lens correction, you can see how everything becomes a little bit flatter if you toggle it on and off. This is light room, compensating for the distortion. The lens on our phone has cost. Next, we go to the color tap and select the eyedropper tool next to the white balance. Draft the circle onto an area that should be totally white. This is why I want to do to get paper that is as wide as possible. Once you've done that, click on the circle. Check mark to confirm setting the white balance helps us make our image more informative because it helps us get a true cholera presentation in our photo. If you want to see the before off your edit, simply hold down your finger on the photo. And if you're not happy with an editing step, click this back arrow symbol on top off the screen. Let's continue with the light top first click on curve and dragged the upper right point down very slightly. This ensures that our white is not 100% white, but ever so slightly great. Why are we doing this? It's because most e commerce platforms have a pure white background and having your product on a slightly great one in choice that it does not seem to randomly float around but to actually be distinguishable as its own image. Now let's make our image even Maura's perfectly pleasing. The first thing I like to do is drag opti exposure slider. Drag it to the right because, remember, bright images are, as Steph thickly more pleasing than darker ones. We won't bright images, but be careful and don't overdo it because we want our colors to remain true, moved down to next slider and drag it up to add a little bit off contrast to your image. Then I like to take the highlights lighter up and the shadows lighter down. This makes the bright every sprite er on the dark one's darker, adding even more ducks on dimension to the photo. Next, do the same with whites. Bring them up on with the blacks by bringing them down. If you have dark objects in your photo, you might want to take birth to shadow as well as the black slider up instead of down in order to bright in the dark areas and to gain more detail, making your image more informative for your potential clients, and that was already it. Like room is a very powerful tool, and you can get lost in it for hours. I recommended. You do so on. Do your own experimenting. But if you don't have to time for that. No worries. What I have just taught you is enough to make your product photos look great, and you don't have to added all the photos individually. But you can copy the adjustments, but just going to previous and then select adjustments. And I'm going to do this here for all my photos. Now this really speeds up the process. What I like to do, then, is look at my entire gallery to see if all the images go together nicely, or if I have to make some individual adjustments. In my case, the images in the middle row look more yellow than the other ones. I'm going in and correct this by individually setting the white balance for each off these photos, not the one with the close up looks a little too bright to me, so I'm going in and I'm just reducing the exposure of it. And now, as you can see, they all go together really nicely. Before exporting your images. You can crop Tim and fine tune your composing of necessary. For example, this image. I want the super to be perfectly centered on this intersection off the grid, so I'm cropping the image accordingly. Once you're happy with your edits, it's time to export your images. Go to the album overview. You can always go back by clicking this little arrow and select the three dots in the right upper corner. Go to select and then tap on all the photos you want to export. Next, click on the share button in the toolbar at the bottom of your screen. I suggested you either safe your photos to your camera roll or sent him to your computer via email. Always choose maximum available as image size in order not to limit yourself in the future . These days, most platforms resized. Images automatically wonder too large, and you can always easily make an image smaller with the help often online converter, for example, with school shop. But you can never make an image bigger. And now, with the last assignment for this class, added, your voters experiment and have fun. Doing so and then share your favorites with us 11. Final Thoughts: congratulations. You have done it. I've had so much fun teaching this class and I hope that you have enjoyed it as much as I did in this class. You have learned how to prepare your product photography session, how to create your own mobile photo studio, how to compose and shoot your images and have to finally edit them. You now know exactly how to do this in way that converts for you by creating photos that are aesthetically pleasing, informative and that evoke desire. Please don't forget to leave me a review. Reuse are the highest price that we teachers can get and they help me to continuously improve my work for you. Thank you so much on. See you again soon.